Technology progress and development has spurred constant innovations of electronic devices such as notebook computers and cell phones. Aside from performance enhancement, their profiles also become thinner and more compact, and the weight is also lighter. Take a notebook computer as an example, in order to make the size smaller and weight lighter when being equipped with a display module (such as a screen) and a processing module (such as a motherboard), it generally adopts a design with a flip or slide cover.
A conventional flip electronic device has a support frame to hold the display module. One of the examples is disclosed in TW patent No. I319526 which has two sets of support ribs to couple with a display module. Another example is TW patent No. M347583 which has a hollow-out frame to form an installation space inside to hold a display module. As the support ribs are formed at a certain thickness, they make reducing the thickness of the electronic device difficult and cannot meet the prevailing demands. Hence the hollow-out frame becomes the mainstream implementation approach. The hollow-out frame generally is formed by punching a metal plate via a punch (or cutter) to produce a hollow-out zone on the metal plate. The display module can be held in the hollow-out zone. While such an approach can make the electronic device thinner, punching on the metal plate creates a lot of waste material that becomes a great concern.
To solve the problem of too much waste material, some producers have tried another fabrication approach of using a metal preform that is formed in a strip shape. By punching the metal preform multiple times, various support structures (such as a support deck) of a support frame are made. Finally, the support frame is bent to form an installation space to hold the display module. But directly bending the support frame results in bearing stresses by the bend portion when two ends of the support frame are pressed inwards. In the event that the bending force is applied inadvertently or the support frame cannot bear such the stresses due to its material, fracture could easily occur. Moreover, the bend portion which is forcibly pressed also is easily deformed due to the stresses that makes assembly of the display module in the following process difficult.